I Like This Fluff And I Cannot Lie

October 31, 2010

Happy Halloween! It’s the best time for MMO gaming, if you ask me, a time when the most interesting events take place in our virtual worlds. I’m like a kid again, roaming the MMO neighborhood knocking on each door begging for treats.

Literally begging. Like, “Pleeeeeeeaaase, let that Skeleton Painted Horse drop for me this time!” I’ve logged into Lord of the Rings Online daily to try for this macabre black beauty, and alas, still no luck. I swear, I don’t recall even yearning so much for the World of Warcraft Headless Horseman mount. As an upside, I’ve picked up many other Harvestmath items, and all the quests have left me with more Fall Festival tokens than I know what to do with. I promptly went to do the horse races and picked up a Sable Harvestmath Steed, whose name is now “Consolation Horse.”

Okay, that was mean. I know horses have feelings too.

Now if only I wasn’t so dirt poor, I’d move out of my dinky house into a larger one so I can display even half my haul of fun items. This being my first year of LOTRO, I’m drinking it all in.

I didn’t really check into WoW’s Hallow’s End this year, seeing as it’s something I’ve done so many times already. And the latest patch has been such a troublemaker, the last thing I want to do is play bob for bugs.

The third MMO I’m playing right now is Star Trek Online. There’s no event happening there per se, but their efforts to join in the fun can be gleaned from their latest hair-raising Feature Episode “What Lies Beneath” (more on that tomorrow).

Anyway, like the title of this post states, I love fluff. All the nice things in our MMOs that have no real purpose or impact outside their own context, but I participate in anyway, just for the sake of the experience. In LOTRO, my vice is housing decorations. In WoW, it’s vanity pets. And in STO, it’s costumes. While it’s not included in the current C-store sale, I picked up the new Seven of Nine costume.

Over-sexualized and impractical? Hey, I don’t disagree! But personally, it bothers me no more than gold armor bikinis or superhero leotards. And what better time than Halloween to slap on a skintight cat-suit and parade around the galaxy? Give T’Andy a pair of ears and she’s all but ready to storm your bridge, polaron-split-beam rifle in hand yelling “Trick or Treat!”

Speaking of treat, I also gave in to a temptation which had been gnawing at me for weeks, and I am now a proud owner of a giant teddy bear with six-inch fangs. What kind of Vulcan would I be, anyway, without my loyal pet Sehlat?

And now if you’ll excuse me, there has been knocking at the door since 3pm. Off to pick out the 3 Musketeers bars for myself from the treat bowl before the kids take them all.

I love all of the MMO fluff too! The games also give me a lot of opportunities to have a lot of holiday fun that I tend to miss out on in RL, me being in a family of one with no kids. Plus, I’ve never had RL opportunities to go into real haunted houses and get tricked by goblins and get cool armor sets from creepy hedge mazes, and have live scarecrow house decorations, etc., so it may even be more fun in the MMO’s anyway.

And I know some people dislike how events in their games coincide with real life holidays because it affects immersion. But that’s part of the reason why I enjoy them, these weeks in a year where we don’t have to take things so seriously. As long as the references to RL don’t get too out of hand, I like a little holiday cheer.

LotRO has been frustrating me. Haven’t figured out the trick or treating part.

WoW’s was quite good. Although I don’t play anymroe WoW has a special place in my heart when it comes to MMOs & Halloween. Every year I watch Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas”. Just finished it, in fact. Can anyone tell me that whomever designed the Undercity wasn’t huffing the Burton brand glue? The first time I laid eyes upon it I was singing, “This is Halloween, this is Halloween, Halloween, Halloween!” :D

WoW does do a great Hallow’s Eve. I know I didn’t participate in any of their events this year because there wasn’t anything new, but I still fondly remember all the fun I had the first few times I did everything. They know how to get into the spirit of things.

I actually thought the Seven of Nine costume was quite tame. A bit risque for Star Trek itself perhaps, but definitely not compared to all the skimpy armor I’ve been seeing in other games, and certainly no worse than what some of the super-heroines are wearing these days.

Good article, though. I agree that “fluff” items should have a place in MMOs – especially holiday-themed ones.

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. For that matter, the span of time from late September to the first of January, is my favorite time of the year. That stretch of time is just a gauntlet of holidays and celebrations, like state fairs, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.

Holidays ingame are often fun for me because I get to have a visual reminder of the season without all the chores that come along with them. I don’t have to put up any decorations, they’re already up; I don’t have to go do any Christmas shopping at a store packed like a sardine can, I can just go to some ingame place and cook a holiday treat; I don’t have be around rl jackasses who piss me off, I can be around ingame jackasses who piss me off – and beat the #@!$ out of them in a duel.

Holidays are something I hope will continue to be a staple of MMOs. Just as long as you don’t get too heavy-handed with them like some people… (I mean, do we really need Pirates Day? Why not Guy Fawkes Day?)

Love the beginning of that poem.
Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

A better question, however, is why an MMO set in a fantasy land with no ties to one nation taking up a large portion of a random landmass on a speck of a planet somehow always shares the same holidays? :)

I agree, as long as it doesn’t get too out of hand. In fact, I even like how some games also create their own lore around the event. However, while we’re on the topic, I am still on the fence with regards to how I would feel if SWTOR implemented Life Day :P

I’d have to know more about Life Day before I could say I was onboard with it (but I’m NOT watching that Christmas special). That said, I seriously want some holiday to coincide with Christmas.

There is only so much immersion you can preserve without taking all the fun out of everything. Sometimes, you just have to suspend disbelief for the sake of fun – like having that reindeer show up at Christmas in WoW, then inexplicably go extinct the rest of the year (gotta love how creatures can come in and out of existence just to celebrate a holiday).

I would hate to be playing SWTOR next Christmas with absolutely no visual cues ingame to the season going on in the real world, so I hope they find a middle ground to allow players to experience those holiday-themed activities.

I appreciate fluff, but only to the extent that holding all of those items is supported by the game. I would love to amass a huge collection of tabards and costemtic clothing options in WoW, but that’s a one way ticket to an unusable bank. I already have far too much junk as it is. At least they made strides with token currencies, pets, and mounts.

At least I EQ2 I only have to hold onto house items long enough to ferry them to my house.

I was watching Blizzcon and a woman asked during the Q&A panel whether or not WoW would ever implement a “closet” system similar to the keyring that would allow us to store all our event junk. BEST QUESTION EVER. Unfortunately, their answer wasn’t very encouraging. I would love something like that, since I do all the events and keep everything I get. My bank is probably 80% filled with that fluff.

@Anjin: yeah, I agree, it’s nice that even the base house in EQ2X lets you place 200 items.

@Mmmogamerchick: I really need to move into a bigger house in LoTRO. I have items in my storage chests (drops from bosses and such) that I can’t even place in my current house. Love those paintings, I will have to go looking for some of those.

You can buy the items with the tokens or get most of them through the chests that you can open every hour, which I was happy to find out. I was going to spend my tokens as I got them, but now it’s probably better to hold on to them until the very end to see what else I still need.